


Eclipse

by lucius_complex



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Content, Adultery, Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, M/M, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:51:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only the ruthless inherit the earth. Fortunately for Harry, he’d always had the very best teachers to guide him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

**E C L I P S E**

_Till now man has been up against Nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature._

_~Dennis Gabor_

 

 1

It came as no surprise to Harry that every time they met, it would be under the cover of darkness.

This time, it was a midnight so bleak and suffocating that the muggles had given up all pretense of calling it an eclipse or a passing phase, and was now just huddled into a giant quivering mass of human fear, praying for deliverance in whatever language they knew how.

It was of no surprise to Harry that Snape would always appear before him like an apparition from a long dead past, knowing things that nobody else knew, bringing forth new warnings, and telling Harry and his ilk in no uncertain terms what a miserable lot of steaming cow droppings the upper echelons of the ministry comprised of, now that it was being run (to the ground) by idiotic ex-students, thereby forcing him reluctantly out of retirement to hammer some sense onto the sortie of impenetrable brick heads.

Harry watched Snape move towards him, more glide than walk even without the benefit of his swirling teacher’s robe. Idly he cast his mind back and recounted... Merlin, it’s been more than ten years since he’d seen Snape in teachers robes. He wore his hair short now too - ears visible, with the ends just reaching past an upturned collar. Harry still found it amusing, how the man seemed to look younger and more like a human being now, compared to the way he had looked during his tenure as a professor at Hogwarts.

‘Nice night to be indoors,’ were his ex-professor’s first words as he popped an unlit cigarette into his mouth, and Harry reflected that Snape had also become more efficient since he’d stopped using big words when talking to the little people; which generally comprised of everybody else. 

‘I like a bit of a breeze,’ Harry nodded at Snape’s cigarette and withdrew his wand. ‘Need a light for that?’

A black eyebrow arched, but the man moved closer to the spark on Harry’s wand, placing two delicate fingers on Harry’s wrist for balance. ‘I’m almost missing your usual brand disapproval tonight,’ he drawled upon the exhalation.

Harry pocketed his wand. ‘I’ve been watching the BBC today. Seeing we might all die tomorrow, I give onto thee my blessings as Boy Who Lived – court as much lung cancer as you like tonight.’

‘Libation from the Minster of Magic himself; what a rare treat.’

‘For one night only,’ Harry said lightly, suppressing the instinct to rub the wrist that Snape had touched. ‘Although that might turn out to be forever, at the rate things are going.’

His ex-professor actually looked insolent for a moment, but the words that came out of his mouth was carefully neutral. ‘I have a fireplace in mind.’

‘If your fireplace comes with Firewhiskey, then by all means lead on.’

Thin lips quirked just before the man turned away. ‘You may depend on that.’

*

Even from the beginning, it had came as no surprise (to Harry at least) that Snape had assumed Dumbledore’s mantle as unofficial guardian fo the wizarding world, if not a very congenial one. The man  _had_  been Dumbledore’s protégé after all, and although they had never agreed on the methods; the goals and motives they’d both pursued, and the all-sacrificing devotion to an outcome had always been the same.   
  
It was really both as simple and as complicated as that.There was a streak of martyrdom and service that ran between Snape and Dumbledor like parallel lines, as deep and as incontrovertible as any religious faith, Harry thought. And for all the insights and education, all the circular ego-stroking thesis and sophisticated nuances of grey, men of faith would always come back to refit the world in shades of black and white.

He couldn’t blame them, just like he couldn’t find any pity or contempt for all the actions; cruel or kind that would propel a faithful believer this way or that. He understood that it was a dazzling thing, to be showed a finish picture, more so to believe in one. But something in Harry had never trusted anything that sounded too good to be true. This was the one difference, he’d always thought, between himself and Snape; the one reason that Dumbledore had ultimately choose to trust Snape with his life, rather than Harry.

Amusing then, how it turned out to be  _Snape_  of all people to be the one driven by a near-religious faith and possessed of more perseverance than he, the valiant Gryffindor poster boy could ever feel. Not that somebody like him would ever admit it, but Harry had always surmised that somewhere in that shriveled-up soul, Snape must be driven by the possibility of salvation. A hard bitten, economical man like Snape would not bother to do so much work if he did not believe in at least a sliver of reward.   
  
Or, if he was not convinced of some form of absolution.

Today, there were four of them seated in a comfortable alcove in Zabini’s muggle apartment in Kensington- Harry never knew beforehand who else whould attend their covert meetings, although many of the faces were in Snape’s team were now as familiar as his own cabinet. Police sirens ripped through the opened windows, the sound carrying like a wail of despair through the perpetually dark sky. It was 4’o clock in the evening, and the tea service was laid out but untouched; he could not make out the color of the fine china that gleamed against the candle lights.

‘…the price of electricity, lighting equipment, generators and the like,’ Blaise was saying. ‘Security, transport, all through the roof. Sustenance and medical’s the worst, and whilst the larger chains are still adhering to the price controls partly due to the police presence, all the smaller grocers have raised their prices by almost a tenfold; and that’s on the days they even bother to open. ‘

On the surface, Zabini was ostensibly the wealthy owner of a chain of muggle and magical watering holes; covertly, he managed mass shipments of occult texts, both legal and illegally though an extensive network of contacts. He was also Snape’s all-purpose right-hand man. Harry had been impressed when he discovered that Snape had been grooming him for this role since he had been seventeen. He’d been even more impressed when he realized later, through his own much slower deductions, that Dumbeldore must surely had know, perhaps even approved or instigated it.   
  
Apparently the old dead coot had believed in reserve armies with their own reserve armies.

‘What about the black market?’

‘Unorganised.’ Zabini said. ‘Mafias are a superstitious lot, even here. It’d be another few weeks before they clobber up a plan, if any.’

Snape nodded. ‘Very well. Nadine?’

Nadine, who was of all things, a muggle  _and_  a St Clare nun to boot, cleared her throat. ‘All nations are calling back their armies.’

‘That’s it?’ Harry echoed. He wished he’d insisted to bring Hermoine; she always knew all the right questions to ask. 

Nadine nodded, put down her report, and adjusted her spectacles. ‘Marine just entered harbour.  Air force, ETA early Wednesday. ’

These news unsettled Harry. ‘Where will they be redistributed?’

‘We don’t know yet,’ the St Clare nun said softly. ‘Most of them will go to into the cities – London. Dublin. I reckon its only a matter of time before Cameron capitulates and declares a state of emergency.’

At this Snape gazed at Harry. ‘And we all know the ramifications of  _that.’_

‘Well, fuck. I need to discuss this with my cabinet,’ was all Harry dared to say.  

‘And also,’ Snape pushed the folder he had been perusing at Harry with a glare; ‘You have not been giving me the information that I have requested.’

‘This is all the information I have.’

‘Then _find_  me more. The muggle hysteria must be contained. Once it starts to contaminate the wizarding world-‘

‘That’s a long way from happening,‘ Harry snorted. ‘You worry too much.’

‘Foul as it is to agree with old four-eyes, he does have a point,’ Zabini drawled. ‘Purebloods are so used to bizarre occurrences here that nobody is batting an eyelash. In Prague, they’re just extending the Witche’s Night Festivities by another week; France has declared  _yet_ another eclipse-winemaking public holiday; and they’re throwing cabbages at the Italian Home Minister after he denied the populist demand for double wages since everyone is working ‘nightshifts’ – all day long.’

 _‘Italians.’_  Snape scoffed, ignoring the almost certain genetic link in his dark features and questionable temper.

‘What about the wizards with half-muggle ties?’ Nadine asked, ignoring Blaise’s scoffed ‘mudblood’ remark. ‘How are they holding up?’

Perhaps it was just as well, Harry thought, that he hadn’t brought Hermoine along. ‘We have support programs in place.  Their names are registered to the nearest Auror centres – we have periodic check-ups. So far the worst we’ve had are just smuggling cases  – muggle children masquerading as Squibs, that sort of thing.’

‘Prepare for more desperate measures. Oblivating and a slap on the wrist will soon not be enough.’

Harry grimaced, but nodded. ‘I’ll be sure to make some public examples.’

‘You’ll face opposition.’

‘I know.’  _Herminone will kill me._      

‘There might come a point where you’ll have to seal the entire wizarding community in,’ Zabini warned. ‘Don’t think these mudbloods won’t try-’

‘Seeing as  _I_ am the one who will decide what to do with these  _half-_ bloodswhen that time comes,’ Harry injected steel in his voice. ‘You will leave this decision up to  _me.’_

‘At the eleventh hour, and relying on your luck as usual? A strategy that suits you admirably,’ Snape sneered. ‘All in service of your political correctness, whilst the greater community suffers for your dithering.’

‘You try to sit in my place for five minutes before you make th-‘

‘Enough, gentlemen,’ Nadine’s voice cut into the fray, soft but firm. ‘When discussions no longer serve, it is time to eat.’

‘Or drink,’ Harry said as he pushed three glasses into the middle of the table. 

Snape glowered at the glasses for a moment before leaning back in his chair and muttering ‘Meeting adjourned.’ Harry watched him close his eyes and drew in a long, thin breath, as if mentally shutting down some internal machinery in the process of overheating.

Zabini picked up the bottle of Firewiskey and waggled his brows suggestively at the nun. ’One for the road? No animals were harmed in the making of this.’

‘I’m all set,’ Nadine said as she gestured at her cup of tea. Not for the first time, Harry wondered where Snape had picked her up, and even more, how he had convinced a pureblood puritan like Zabini to not only work together, but become friends with a member of the muggle ecclesiastical.

‘No booze, and no meat, and no sex.’ Zabini shook his head at what Harry agreed in the private confines of his mind to be a tragic state of affairs, particularly when done in a voluntary manner. ‘What if it really was the end of the world, are you still going to hang on to those formidable principles? ’

‘All the more reason to be sure I haven’t wasted two decades of celibacy,’ the nun told them with a perfectly straight face. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers,’ Harry said as he hid a smile behind his glass. Perhaps Snape hadn’t had to do anything.  

 *


	2. Chapter 2

 

2

‘Good morning Minister!’

‘Minster, there’s an urgent firecall on avatar fourteen-‘

‘Minster,’

‘Harry, we  _desperately_ need your signatures on the new contracts, they’ve been on your table for months-‘

‘Minister, I’d like a word.’

‘Minister-‘

‘Whoa – er, morning Sir.’

‘Morning Rizal.’ Harry said when he finally stopped walking and turned around, hand on doorknob. ‘No appointments today, alright?’

‘But you’ve promised-’ his assistant flushed with dismay as he looked back at the line of clamoring supplicants crowding out of the corridor and took a deep breath. ‘Yes sir, I’ll.. try.’

‘Attaboy, Rizal.’ Harry said as he shut the door firmly, locked it, and followed with a particularly nasty ward. Gasps and exclamations were audible outside as a profusion of green threads begun to writhe and wrapped around the wood, growing into knotty, wet strands that hissed with poison. Tapping his wand on his lips, he surveyed his handiwork with amusement.   

Only Hermoine would be crazy enough to brave something like that.

*

‘You’re terribly irritating,’ Harry said to the owl-hawk on the window sill. Being Snape’s owl, her only reaction was to give Harry a look of utter derision and contempt whilst waiting for her reply. It was amazing that every single bird to come from Snape (and there had been many, seeing that the man could not be caught with the same owl too many times) had somehow represented certain aspects of his ex-professor – fussy, hectroring, and prone to draw blood. Some had come with hard, expressive eyes, some graceful and sleek. Quite a few had been quietly intimidating, or noisily infuriating, and more than one had tried to attack him. The last one had been particularly frigid, and hadn’t allowed Harry to stroke him.

Sucking on his bleeding finger as he squinted at Snape’s miniscule scrawl, Harry wondered how a cute familiar, such as a rabbit or a baby chick, would look after a month in Snape’s care. Rabid, probably. Breeding their own armies of were-rabbits and vampiric chicks.

*

There were days when Harry wished Snape remained the same greasy flapping old buzzard; it would have made their dealings a lot less complicated. Certainly it would not find them as they were now, drunk out of their minds and clinging to each other; dueling with tongues and pricks and words.

‘Wanton little slut,’

‘Fucked up child-molesting puppet master.’

‘Where’s your  _wife_  now?’ Snape purred into his neck, tickling the fine hairs there.

‘Shut up,’ Harry snarled. ‘Don’t you dare say her name with your filthy-.’

‘Feeling used now, are we?’ Snape shoved his shoulders onto the chesterfield with a laugh.. ‘What would _you_  know of being used? What would you know of two-score years of getting fucked;’ and here he hissed like a snake; ‘-and being used?’

Harry debated struggling for several seconds, before Snapes fingers slipped nimbly into his pants and he gasped instead, clawing into the leather. ‘Fuck.  _Fuck._ ’

‘Where’s your wife, Minister?’ Snape mouthed into his ears again, the smile evident in his voice. ‘Where’s your wife? Did little Miss Contrary refuse to give you a blow job on that big, important desk? Did she shy away from anal penetration, was she too clean?’

Hot tears were leaking out of Harry’s eyes. ‘Just. Shut up and.  _Fuck_  me.’ He felt his trousers being yanked to his knees, and almost trembled with relief.

Naturally the bastard was relentless. ‘Was she too good to suck dick?’

Harry twisted around and bit whatever he could reach just as the blunt, unforgiving edge of Snape’s prick penetrated him. ‘ _She_  didn’t have my kind of teacher.’ The statement ended in a whine as he pushed back greedily against his ex-professors hips, seeking friction.

Snape gave a breathy laugh as he pumped into Harry. ‘I never could find an excuse to give her detentions.  _You,_  however-’

He thrust hard, and Harry choked on the scream threatening to leave his throat. ‘You just. Couldn’t. Get enough. Of my. Detentions.’

Each slap of Snape’s balls against his burning ass brought Harry back to the potions lab, candle lit by night, the feel of the woody grains of the benches on his bare arse after he had been whipped and plugged and fucked; back and further back to when he had been small enough to sit on Snape’s laps and impale himself; panting to the honeyed, encouraging murmurings and a talented, insidious tongue; and still further back, to his first cock ring, glinting gold in the fireplace, to student robes sodden with come- and then too far, to  _Bill-_ oh,  _Bill_ -

He collapsed and came with tears clogging his throat and a hoarse name on his lips, but Harry had no idea who he had called out to.  

‘Still as easy as ever, Potter. One would think you’d want something more after all these years.’ Snape stepped over him as he made his way to the window sill, and paused.

‘Send my regards to Hermoine.’

*

Rizal, who was worth his weight in gold, had sealed the fireplace and placed a pot of coffee next to the stack of his letters waiting on his desk, placing the one from Bill Weasley at the very top.

Harry sighed as he picked it up. As far as open secrets went, he supposed that this was really the best he could hope for.

_Dear Harry,_

_I understand you’re a busy man these days, so I’ll keep it short._

_There’s talk here on the streets of Cairo that they may close down the International Floo Networks soon. Even the big heads have problems getting appointment at the embassies; I know that Charlie’s facing something similar in Romania, and I haven’t been able to get in touch with Ron for over ten days, although I’m assured that he hasn’t left Beijing yet._

_You know my family’s a bit like the United Nations – everyone’s spread out and married into different nationalities, so getting visas  in this sort of climate is going to be a nightmare, especially for Teddy. Each time he crosses a border.. I can’t even begin to describe the hoops they force us to jump through.  I dread the thought of all of us not getting to leave together. Fleur is with already in her third trimester, and we fear that our baby may not get British protection if he is not born back home._

_I know that you’re not friends with Ron anymore, so I’ve little basis for asking for such a big favor, but nevertheless, I know you; of your generosity. Even if the request pains you, as I know this one would. Please help me unite my family back on British soil, Harry. I’ve attached all the letters and necessary documents; they simply require your signature._

_Perhaps we could meet up and speak of old times when I am back._

_Sincerely,_

_Bill Weasley_

_Ps: Please send my love and best wishes to your wife._

*

Harry seldom thought of Bill these days. There was no time, and between managing his thankless job and an even more thankless Snape, the memories of his first crush laid like shards of broken glass in a hall of mirrors.

Hehad always told himself that Bill’s part in his life’s had been given artificial weight; that if Snape hadn’t forced him to recount for hours, as a student, all his lewd fantasies over and over again, hadn’t magnified Harry adolescent desires back upon him so insistently and forced him to relive it, it would have been an ordinary infatuation that would have faded in time like all others, no more than a growing pain, admiration for a particularly nice work of art.

Bill had been handsome and kind and universally adored; the first person he’d met that united these features in one person. Harry was fourteen, starved for affection, and looking for role models of a similar age.

 Snape had never tired of hearing Harry talk about Bill. Had forced him to talk, in fact. Had supplied the lust potion which had enabled Harry to lead the redhead down to the dungeons, one night for his sick voyeuristic fantasies. He had been too young then, to appreciate just what a riot it must have been for Snape to jerk himself off, wrapped up in James Potter’s invisible cloak whilst watching his under aged son get the buggering of his life over Snape’s table. Too young to appreciate that Snape always had been, and always will be first and foremost, a master of vengeance.

*


	3. Chapter 3

 

3

The sky was spitting red sparks; lighting raised against the inky clouds like varicose veins; like flayed scars.

Severus kicked away the sheets that tangled around his ankles and moved a damp Lucky Strike between the corners of his mouth as he forced his tired eyed (infected, he was sure) to concentrate on the latest pile of tea-stained reports on his lap. The dim lighting didn’t help the strain in his eyes, but he loathed to switch to anything brighter until his sleeping partner stirred.

He held up a sheet of Nadine’s cramped, elegant scrawl and squinted at the many commentaries that dotted the margins; somebody ought to take the nun aside one day and tell her that using more paper wasn’t going to send her to Environmentalist Hell.

After an interminable time the sleeping form beside him stirred. Shifted, snorted, and pushed an auburn head onto his lap, unheeding of the papers that crumpled under its weight. Clear blue eyes blinked up at him, sleepy and amused.

‘Don’t you ever need any sleep?’ Bill’s voice was a pleasant sleepy rasp. 

Severus shifted his unlit cigarette again with his tongue and pulled the crumpled papers from under the head on his lap. ‘No rest for the wicked.’

Bill laughed, shook his long, tousled hair away from his face, and lit Severus’ cigarette with slow unsteady fingers. ‘You’re a very wicked, very gallant man then, and my family thanks you for it. How’d you know he would sign it?’

‘The same way you knew to come to me first.’

Bill ached into a brief kiss with his eyes closed.  ‘You seem to have a thing for flawed Gryffindors. Professor.’

Severus traced the scars on his once-handsome face as the younger man presses gentle fingertips on desiccated tissues on the side of his throat. ‘Perhaps I simply have a thing for scars.’

Cigarette in his mouth, Severus  took his time to examine the young man in his bed; long limbed, blue-eyed and (once) pleasant faced, his hair a river of autumn fire upon his back. He looked at the raised tissue on that clear, transparent face; at scars more suited on the face of a villain; a disfiguration that jarred and rang with such wrongness on the high, peaches-and-cream cheekbones of the young. His eyes fell on the discoloured patches on his own arm where the dark mark used to be. Interesting, how the scars on his own body always looked like they belonged there; bare skin like parchment; patiently waiting for their turn. The world comprised of all kinds of creatures; some were made into the likeness of swans and gazelles, most beautiful when free; observed from a wistful distance. And some were made to be marked, like cattle, for servitude.

Who was his master now? Who kept him on course, caged perhaps, but  _safe_ ; far away from howling wolves and the soft, cool touch of an ever-encroaching insanity?

‘I have potions for Fleur,’ he nodded at the table, with his cloth package of vials. ‘Something to ease the morning sickness.’

‘Kicking me out already?’ Bill smiled as he opened his eyes, cornflower blue and pensive, lashes that beat together like courting butterflies. ‘And here I’d hoped that you might have missed me in the interim.’

He stubbed his cigarette and flicked it out of the window. ‘What’s there to miss?’

He watched the redhead climb out of bed and reached for his jeans, dressing in silence. Bill tied up his long fiery mane last, and Severus mourned it already, would later pick up the fallen threads one by one and breath into it, would keep them, with all the others in bottles blown in green fire, bottles made of black sand, bottles once used by dark wizards to hold their most precious ingredients in stasis.

 ‘You always did like to keep a spare around,’ Bill said in farewell as he picked up the bundle and walked through the door. ‘Thank you for the potions.’

Alone, Severus lit another cigarette and pulled out his notes again.   

Who was his master now?  

Outside, in the lightning, the winds of insanity bayed like hungry dogs.

*

The corridors of power, Harry Potter thought to himself wryly, were not only figuratively but also literarily full of shit. Owls and other familiars deposited their droppings here (like some Parisian saloon) as liberally as any sidewalk in Diagon Alley. Sometimes Harry envied their freedom; there were quite a few people he worked with whose desks he’d have liked to leave a big, steaming pile of Potter-shaped shit on as a calling card.

Luckily he had Rizal to knock some sense into him, and on occasion, Snape, who had put too much work into getting Harry into the biggest office in wizarding London to allow him to jeopardise it with his occasional bouts of macabre humour. There’d been that one (glorious) time when he’d ‘accidently’ spilled a truth serum into the Ministry drinking fountain that had almost ended up with bloodshed and the Russian embassy declaring a permanent embargo; Harry’s eyes misted over with nostalgia at the memory.

He found himself owling reports to Snape almost daily now; a collection of news clippings from the around the world; spreadsheets he’d never been able to make head or tail of, even three years into his second term - careful updates on the efforts of the Merlin Society; the fellowship of international magical scholars and researchers who was currently working around the clock to look for a way to address the sudden, protracted eclipse that had descended upon their world.

Never had science and magic failed so spectacularly before; nor leaders, both religious and political shown so much naked fear, been so glad to turn clay ankles up to the cameras as if to say; ‘Remember I am human. Remember I am one of you.’ No event in humanity had ever stretched thus, to a time when every suggestion had been tried or shot down, when nobody wanted to be _the_  hero, when the murmur of voices had died down and the silence had stretched so long that everyone had been forced to confront the fears and phobias beating within their own breast.

Suicide rates, both muggle and magical were climbing; Harry found that war and all petty demarcations set aside, humans were a race ill suited to silence and uncertainly. The relentless, unending night was like a boogey monster, and all looked towards a parental figure.. one who seldom knew any better-

‘Minister,’ a hand tapped him hesitantly on the shoulder. ‘You’ve been motionless for a long time, sir.’

Harry shook his head. ‘Sorry Rizal. A lot on the mind these days.’

‘Your wife is on the line, sir. She’s been holding for some time.’

Harry blinked, and strode towards his inner sanctum. ‘Of course. I’ll take it in the study.’

‘Very good, Minister.’

The moment Harry put up the silencing wards, Hermione’s tired voice filled the air.     

‘Harry, I’m so sorry I haven’t called to check on you in two days-‘

’Now’s not the time to worry about such things, Mione. How are you keeping up?’

 A sigh filled the air, seeping into the corners of the room. ‘Not fantastic. We’ve not been productive for days; everyone’s just.. angry… and exhausted.  _I’m_ exhausted.’

‘One of you should remember that the Society of Merlin comprises of normal human beings, not demi gods who require neither sleep nor sustenance,’ Harry chided. ‘What’s to achieve if the lot of you are about to keel over from exhaustion?’

‘Oh, Harry..’ He’d never heard Hermione’s voice sound so desolate; ‘The council is leaning towards total segregation.’ 

Out of respect, Harry allowed a few seconds to pass before he pointed out in his most reasonable voice; ‘So many of the Society members are purebloods. Surely you cannot be surprised.’

 ‘They’re wrong!’ Hermione burst out. ‘There must be a better way than choosing to hide ourselves away like cowards whilst the rest of the world rots away-’

‘Do you have supporters?’

‘Well there  _is_  a fraction; mostly from Asia. Whilst they… don’t believe as well that muggle and magical communities can co-exist, they do believe that providing aid covertly to the muggle society can be done. The Tibetans and Burmese have been sending out teams since the very beginning. We can organise ourselves, do something similar.. preserve the cycles of photosynthesis and biological growth.. Harry, I need your help.’

‘You’ll expose us all, Hermione. If we choose this timing to introduce ourselves, who do you think the Muggles will pin this eclipse on?’

‘We don’t know for sure that they’ll do that!’ she snapped, before softening, sounding almost afraid. ‘Harry, we don’t know what will happen, but it doesn’t mean we don’t try. The Minister’s voice is a powerful one…’

‘Ah,’ Harry said diplomatically. ‘And the Boy Who Lived comes with an augmented influence.’ 

 ‘I’m not even supposed to be talking to you while we’re in session.’ Hermione said tiredly. ‘You know our rules.’

‘Screw the rules,’ Harry laughed. ‘Half of your Merlin Society members probably report to their own governments during break.’

‘We vote in two days. The weighted system has been taken away, we’ve agreed that for such unique circumstances every civilisation must have their own voice.’

‘Which just means more votes than usual will be for sale.’

‘It’s hard to say what weight politicking has these days. The situation is… unprecedented.’

‘Perhaps the world is ending.’

‘Oh, Harry.  _Promise_ me-’

‘Don’t worry, ‘Mione.’

There was a stiff moment of silence; he knew how much his wife hated false platitudes. Yet they had married each other for them, was it not? False platitudes.

‘I heard what you did for the Weasleys. That was.. good of you.’

‘The Weasleys are good people. It didn’t take a moment of my time.’

‘I thought that since they are back, and with times so uncertain, now would be a good time to..’

‘To make peace?’ Harry asked, amused. He could almost see her turning her wand over and over again in a palm, a nervous gesture.

 ‘With Bill.’

‘With Bill,’ Harry echoed skeptically. ‘Don’t you mean with Ron, Hermione?  _He’s_ the one I stole you from-’

‘Stop it. Just  _stop it.’_

‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.’

‘There’s no need for for the guilty to appologise to each other.’

Involuntary laughter escaped his lips. ‘Get some rest, Hermione.’

‘I should. You’ll help, wont you?’

 ‘I’m your husband, aren’t I?’

‘I.. love you.’

She sounded so different as an adult, he thought. So soft and uncertain; all the secret answers to the universe that she used to be so sure of as a child, torn down by time, by taking herself and the world too seriously.

‘I love you too.’

Alone, Harry penned off a quick letter to Snape and gazed at the thunder lashing the sky, opening up a new network of red veins. He wondered if the clouds would rain blood upon them all.

He wondered what Voldemort would have done in his place, had history turned out a little different.  
  
*  
  
[  
](http://lucius-complex.livejournal.com/31201.html)

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

‘Fuck the muggles. Fuck the mudbloods. Fuck them all!’

Nadine raised a pale, shaking hand; ‘Can we please not use s-‘

‘But of course, I  _have_ been sitting at a table with two filthy little mudbloods and, get this; a honest to goodness, living muggle priestess! With her little stick crosses and her little vials of prayed-over rain water, tell me, oh exotic muggle slut, do you  _really_ believe in that little prayer book of yours, all those scary stories of a conscious, living God-’

‘Now you’re just being  _offensive_ , wizard!’

 ‘And fuck you, Snape,’ Blaise spat, evidently just getting warmed up. ‘I told you of the outcome of surrounding yourself with muggle-lovers years ago, did you ever listen?’

Harry watched Snape watching Nadine with some interest, hands steepled over heart. The muggle nun, breached of her substantial reserve of patience finally seemed as eager to indulge in good old-fashioned mud-slinging as her pureblood opponent.

Surprisingly, all Snape said was; ‘Let’s hear what Potter has to say.’

Harry crossed his legs in discomfort. ‘What if there really was a middle path? A way to get either non-magical relatives into a secured, monitored compound, safe but still averted.’

‘And then what? Would you have patrols run 24 hour Oblivate charms over the 30 thousand Muggles? Because that’s the statistics, Potter. Thirty thousand direct living relatives, who will have their own friends and families they’re equally desperate to save.. how much of OUR resources Potter, are you willing to stretch for them? How much of your pureblood electorate will you risk in this-’

‘IF,’ Harry interrupted, ‘IF we can set conditions, establish parameters-‘

‘Then you’re a delusional nincompoop denuded of common sense,’ Snape said succinctly.

‘And you’re a steaming piece of turd,’ Harry told him. ‘What do you want to do, AK every single one of the dissenting half-bloods who has a muggle friend or relative? Feeling nostalgic for the good old Voldemort days?’

‘Do not mention Voldemort,’ Snape said, sounding almost bored.

 ‘Do not comment on muggle fables on non-existent gods,’ Harry scoffed. ‘Do not mention Voldemort. So what the fuck do we  _get_  to do, Snape? What are we meeting for, pissing over demographics, or have you spent so many years following the agendas of your masters, like a good dog, that you have problems naming one of your own?’ He leaned forward and whispered. ‘What you would have us do is watch. That’s  _all_. By god, Dumbledore taught you to heel very well. You were trained to be his watchdog, Snape, so watching is all you ever learned to do.’

‘What would you have me do?’ Snape grunted.

‘What do you think? Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war,’ Zabini mocked, saluting Harry with his glass. ‘That’s what God-elected Ministers are for,’

Harry inhaled noisily. ‘Etu, Snape? Would you reprise your Brutus?’

To his credit, Snape did not stir, did not bat an eyelash. ‘Would you be Caeser? Choose.’

A mirthless chuckle escaped him. ‘So that is how it is to be. Good luck to you, then, because I intend to be out of the way. My wife has an even bigger saving-people thing than me.’

‘Divorce that useless muggle-born mudblood-’  

A small, sick noise escaped Nadine, and they all looked at the nun as she stood up and folded her spectacles into her pocket. ‘Excuse me, I find I can no longer participate in these conversations.’ Harry felt pity stir in his chest as he watched the muggle girl quietly pull back her chair and leave. She looked almost child-like, absurdly young and out of her depth. Snape had a talent, he knew, for picking them young and obedient.

*

The sad thing about the whole situation, Harry thought as he sat alone in the stone pews, was that Nadine was not even a squib, nor did she have any family or connection to the magical world on her own. The muggle’s own natural curiosity and pure blind luck (or the hand of God,) was what had lead her to them, and this was a trait Harry knew enough about to realise that interference was futile.

The daughter of St Clare joined him a moment later, wincing at the cold as she took her seat on the unforgiving  pews. ‘Sorry to make you wait;  you mentioned your wife is Angelican, so perhaps she’ll accept my rosaries.’

‘I couldn’t,’ Harry protested.

‘Please. I’m afraid they’re rather plain. Apostolic poverty, you know.’

Harry fingered the wooden beads in his hand. ‘You seem terribly young, to be giving so much up.’

‘We are an order of penance, it is true; one that might seem unduly harsh under the halogen bulb of modern consumption. I have however, gained much peace from it.’

‘Do you feel undeserving, or just undone by too many choices, too many paths?’

The St. Clare child looked at him, a quiet, heavy weight in her eyes that was perhaps much older, Harry thought than his own. ‘I believe that in penance, one gains by the act of giving up.’

‘If you followed us, we could make you immortal.’

‘Do you think such a fate would count as a,  _a gift_? Should I count myself as lucky, to be chosen by your species to be the last muggle left on earth? ’

‘A duty, then,’ Harry said. ‘To remember. To record. ’

‘A curse. With no respite from eternity.’

‘One of your kind should be there, to tell the story from a different perspective.’

‘And who of  _my kind_  would be left to read it?’

‘I’m sorry. I’ll make sure… somebody does.’

‘Who amongst  _your_  people would bother to acknowledge their part in causing the death of the human race?’

‘We  _all_ came from the same human race.’

‘Did you?’ the young muggle girl laughed as she rose from the pew and begun to walk away. ‘Are you sure the lot of you have any humanity left? You, who will do nothing. You, who will  _say_  nothing, even to your half-muggle  _wife-‘_

Harry simply stared at her coldly. ‘Why don’t you pray over it, ask Gods his will?’

The young nun stopped walking, and cocked her head. ‘I know they call you the Savior of the Wizarding world, Potter. And I know you’re about to become the wizarding equivalent of Moses. I don’t know your people’s history, but saviors from  _my_ world ends up with getting everything taken from them. Saviors from my world, ends up getting nailed to the cross.’  
  
*


	5. Chapter 5

 

5

Harry had always hated press conferences, but he knew what was coming now would be even worse. The excited bustle of the hall beyond him pricked into his skin, into his skull. Somewhere out there, Snape was glowering contemptuously at a cameraman who was attempting to squeeze past him in the sardine-packed crowd; Harry tried and failed to imagine those lanky limbs folded into a plastic chair.

He swallowed, wishing for water (out on the dais, where sipping was seen as a guilty act, a throat that tightened from guilt, or buying for time). Instead he closed his eyes, concentrated on the exhale, waited for the cool click of heels to stop beside him.

‘Hermione.’

She looked at him blankly, like a reflex; a very brief turn of her head that showed almost no recognition. It was the first time he’d ever seen her in scarlet lipstick.

‘Harry.’

He blinked and wet his lips. Six years they’d been married, and he had no idea what to say to her, now that things had come to this.

‘How are-‘ the words faltered and died on his lips, forced him to regroup and strike out again. ‘Did you get the prayer beads I sent?’

Her silence had always had the power to terrify him, Harry mused, because he had grown up with her talking so much.

‘Throw me some rope here, ‘Mione’

‘If you..promise to hang yourself,’ the words rolled out of her mouth dull, slow and heavy; his noble wife was doing him a favour by acknowledging him, responding as he wished. Harry wanted to ask for a hug. He wanted to joke; ‘Do you still have that time turner that Dumbledore borrowed you?’

He’d never seen her hair lose outside of a home he seldom came back to; Hermione had always equated being official with having her head warped up in hair nets and barrettes, a self-conscious memento from all the teasing she received during her Hogwarts years. Whether a subconscious or deliberate gesture, she did well to leave her hair trailing and wild, to come with no notes and empty upturned hands, as if her message would bleed straight from her broken heart; carried by tears and passion; oh, she was clever to come with bruised, swollen eyes and a mouth like a scarlet fruit – in her Harry saw the ecstasy of virgin martyrs, the weeping prostitutes on the road to Calvary. She would convert many to her cause, even before she uttered a word. Just standing there, in her pale suffering, she half converted him already.

He wished he had the guts to wonder aloud; ‘Why do you look so beautiful today? Today of all days?’

A very uncomfortable aide approached them, loudly and artificially clearing his throat. Huddled and watching from a safe distance was a group of producers, several of his other ministers, and probably Rizal as well, the dammed coward. 

‘Urm. Sorry minister, have you decided who will speak first?’

‘My wife, if she wishes,’ Harry said, watching the almost imperceptible tightening in her dark brown eyes.

‘Mrs Potter, you’ll speak first then on your Anti-Exclusionist stance. We’ll tell you how much time you have remaining on the earphone every six minutes. Three reminders, then the last 120 seconds will have another two reminders, ok?’

Hermione gave a tight nod, saying nothing.

‘Minister, you’ll rebut your wif- uh, I mean; you’ll give your rebuttals to-‘ the aide gestured at Hermione, his face flaming; ‘-for six minutes, then go straight into the Segregationist platform. We’ll give you the same warnings.’

 ‘Six minute intervals, got it,’ Harry nodded.

‘Uh, I’m sure you already know the ground rules , but I’m gonna remind you again that there are no opening statements, only closing ones; to.. er, watch the cameras, not each other; you can only attack the idea and not the.. person;’ the aide’s ears tinged red ‘.. and uh, no mention of, uh…private lives.’ 

Harry gazed at Hermione’s frozen face. ‘We’re good. Thanks, buddy.’

‘Ok, just tap on the earphone if you have any other questions,’ the aide said as he backed away, relief radiating from his very pores. ‘We cut to live in exactly two minutes.’

‘After our debate ,’ Hermione murmured once they had regained their privacy, ‘you can sign the divorce papers.’

Harry watched his wife take his hand and raise it up to her lips, leaving a scarlet slash on his knuckles. He watched her turn his hand around and place something cold and heavy on his palm. He gazed dumbly at the gold band there, identical to the one he wore, the one that always looked to him like a miniature version of his first cock ring, cold and heavy and suffocating.

‘Hermione-   _please_.’ He didn’t know why he felt so desperate; he remembered vividly how he’d dreamt of freedom once- how, with a hot, dirty mouth on his cock and he’d looked at the ring glinting from the fist he’s stuffed in Snape’s hair and hated her. There was a time when he had well and truly  _hated_  her.

Hermione pressed a finger to his shaking lips to still him, her eyes gentle even in the face of his betrayal. Harry had always hated this; the fact that he could never rise above himself the way she had always seemed to do so effortlessly.

She did not looking at him as she walked into the flashing lights; and watching her, Harry realized that it was only today that he was finally cognizant of the cost that her wife paid on a daily basis for her beliefs.

*

Rizal had dimmed the lights, leaving only the scones burning. His assistant’s resignation letter, in a dark olive envelope, Harry threw into the bin without opening, along with the newspapers screaming out the words ‘Wizarding Exodus!’. 

In the end, the group that than followed Hermione out of Diagon Alley had been pitifully small; political dissenters; social workers, doctors, far too many students— martyrs all, their faces shining like open flames feeding on Hermione’s valiant ideals. Zabini had gleefully reported the figures – two thousand mudbloods and seventeen purebloods. 

He remembered the ‘special’ list they had brought him earlier that day, names that the Minster of Magic was personally acquainted with, just in case he faced hard questions from grieving friends and families who nonetheless, elected or were persuaded to stay.

Ted Weasley, nee Tonks, age twelve. Bill Weasley, father of two pureblooded, Veela-enhanced children, who would go into no brave new world that didn’t welcome his wereling step-child. Dean Thomas. Aberforth Dumbledore. Susan Bones. He hadn’t bothered to read every name, there was simply no point. No point.

Rizal Abdul Rahman, and Harry spared a moment to remember the faithful assistant who came into his office three years ago practically trembling in awe at the idea of working under the Boy Who Lived.

Sadistically, he makes up his own imaginary list: Lily Evans: she would have followed, had she been alive. Harry found that he wasn’t so certain what his father’s choice would have been, (surely he had inherited this moral ambiguity from _someone_ ); Sirius had had a loyalty that operated to the point of blindness. Albus Dumbledore might have persuaded half of this suicidal exodus to stay, but the old man had lacked the time to school his protégé on how to wage wars of political outmaneuverance, and Severus in turn, had no wisdom to pass to him in that regard. 

The grey plaid package left on his desk he unwrapped, fingering the thirteen vials of sleep potions with a grim pleasure; praise from Snape always had a tendency of coming from a bottle. He imagined a stork, triangle of cloth in its beak, except the stork would be black and his precious cargo would comprise of bottles of poisons. Harry had always thought that there was something that approximated the bird in Severus Snape: Raven. Minor. Vulture. Hawk. Albatross. A dove, Harry snorted to himself in amusement; albeit a black and rather malignant one: patron saint of necessity and other impossible tasks; sighted in times of tumult, simultaneous herald of both death and salvation.

Different birds with different skins, but always linked to aviation – an eccentric association, considering the man very seldom flew.

He wondered what names history would give to this group who had gone out to die. What they would call the ones who came running back, slamming their bleeding fists on a dead brick wall that no longer responded to cries nor spells. Would their names be erased? Would they be the long night’s unsung heroes, written into plays and woven into tapestries?    

 _Hermione_. It was a good name for a saint. A good name, Harry thought, for the new streets and schools they would have to rebuild; a good name for chocolate frog cards and history books.  
  
*


	6. Chapter 6

 

6

He liked to listen to the Japanese children singing in the park; there was a subtle melancholy to the harmony, something wistful and eternal that seemed to commune with earth and mountain. He liked the Chinese gardens, picking his way over paths filled with black stones as big as robin eggs - some moon-faced child had given him a paper lantern once here; which he’d exchanged for a Malaysian Wau-kite he couldn’t use, since Waus were propelled only by singing in the traditional, bird-like dialect whose culture it came from. Snape had taken it anyway, because its sharp tapered head and leather wings had reminded him of a very fat Pterodactyl.

The Hermione Gardens were the most culturally variegated spot in the whole of Meropis (trust the unimaginative administrative _idiots_ to resort to recycling obscure mythological names), part of the new wizarding Metropolis that united the magical survivors of the eclipse. Till today, he remained surprised at how easily the world’s population had assimilated with each other.

At the center of the city, like a golden obelisk, stood the Sophia Tower, where the Merlin-Hermione Society convened in a grotesque approximation of a muggle United Nations parliament. Severus still found it a jarring sight after all these years, still found time to tell Harry  that his pointlessly pirouetting design had all the grace of a Nadroj Troll in a tutu.

 In reprisal, Harry had designed the International Ministry of Cultural Integrity in the shape of a sooty peacock. The Indian wizards were delighted, a fair number of superstitious Mediterranean less so, and Severus had yet to set foot into the department that Harry was now running, pleading retirement.

He’d had taken the same path every morning more for almost a decade now, walking slowly, ignoring the racing children except to give thanks every now and then for no longer having to teach the miniature monsters. Over the years, Harry had foisted endless numbers of walking sticks and canes upon him at the door, and he’d hang on to them, grumbling, till he reached the Koi pond and, with satisfying force, struck each stick into the mud (hah!) where the water met the edge, raising a cloud of jewel-hued dragonflies. There, to join a growing row of totem poles (about two a month) that had evolved over the years into its own tourist hotspot.

 Today he was feeling a little triumphant because he’d beaten the stupid Gryffindor to the door ( _always_ a Gryffindor, no matter how many grey hairs he grew), spurred by this, he’d jauntily decided to try another more challenging path – where he bumped into Ron Weasley of all the people on Merlin’s blackened earth, and Severus forgot how to breath for a moment because the same blue eyes stare out of Weasely’s face; the same autumn hair, and he  _grieved_ , he grieved for Bill, for the row of tiny black bottles lined up like neat soldiers, glinting in a place with no sun because they held all the light in the world, all the light in his heart.

Then Weasley comes closer and Severus almost closed his eyes, he  _almost,_  almost fell upon the grass. Wished as he’d never wished before for a walking stick. Wished his fingers had grazed Harry’s this morning as they always do on the mornings the staff changed hands, so that something in the memory of his skin would help him hang on to sanity, to  _Harry_ , and not to Bill. Not Bill.  

‘Professor Snape,’

‘Mister… Weasely.’

A crinkled smile, wrinkles, crow lines; pepper on his brows; Bill had none of these. None, and Severus wanted so desperately, just for a brief moment to reach - smooth his fingers over auburn illusions-

‘You’ve met my youngest of course.’ Ronald Weasley  said. ‘Helen just turned six. Say hello to professor.’

‘Hullo prof’sore.’

With that exotic lilt, the Weaselys must be living near the Latin Quarter. Bill’s oldest was seventeen now, had grown up uncommonly handsome, and wore his hair long. His silver-hued eyes, thank god, took after his mother.

‘Why do old people make their white hair long, papa?’

 ‘Shhhh,’ Ronald Weasley blushed as red as his hair and herded his tiny daughter behind him. 

‘Pro’sore, why do people call you The Grumpy Dumbledore?

 ‘Helen, you don’t ask people such rude questions. I’m so sorry, Professor, Latin Quarter, what can I say.. Professor? _Professor??_ ’ Weasely’s  voice turned urgent as Severus’s vision swam. ‘Darling, run and get help –  _Snape-_ ’

Severus shut  his eyes, he no longer cares about dignity. He’d out lasted them all. He has escaped servitude. He’d won.

Who was his master now?

*

‘I’m too old for this,’ Snape glowered at Harry as he tightened his tie, as if the whole thing was his fault. ‘Next time leave your bloody clichéd wedding invitations where they belong; in the kindling bin!’

‘They’re  _your_  friends,’ Harry snorted. ‘Whenever Zabini walked into the room I spent too much of my time keeping my back against the nearest wall to get to know him.’

‘I have no  _friends,’_ Snape snaped at him; ‘0nly irritating ex-colleagues who don’t have the courtesy to keep their hormonal outburst to themselves.’

‘It took them such a  _long_  time to tell us, even you have to admit that was cute.’ Harry grinned as he turned around and fixed Snape’s tie. ‘And  _surely_ you don’t want to miss our community’s first muggle-pureblood binding ceremony...’ He broke off with a small laugh. ‘I wonder if Nadine intends to preside over her own marriage. I didn’t get the chance to ask.’

 

Of course,  _that_ comment had his husband jumping into another protracted rant about the about lily-livered  _children,_ and Harry almost hummed as he listened to Snape prattle away (always a lullaby, as long as it was about somebody else). He’d truly enjoyed the look on Zambini’s face the day the proud pureblood wizard has showed up to formally request for Severus to give his favorite muggle writer (and now ex-nun) away in holy matrimony. There was something inherently satisfying in seeing that smug mask torn off for once, when Blaise had been reduced to a quivering mortal (hah!) man, yelping monosyllabic answers to Snape’s questioning barks.

Harry chuckled to himself. Something about his one-time professor made one’s perceptions of the man was time-resistant no matter how much the man had mellowed – that was his secret weapon; how Snape had always succeeded in making Minister, journalists, and even the bloody Wizengamot defer to his suggestions, or at the very least hear him out.  Aside from being a reasonable Potions master, this small silver was the sum of his special gift, really.

Snape, who had possessed neither ostensible title nor wealth; who had built ‘connections’ by breaking into people’s homes and offices to rain his utter scorn upon them; who had, in one memorable case, caused in a mild stoke when he came through the 2007’s Minister of Finance’s private floo to tell him that the new tax system was rubbish…

 ‘I’d rather chew glass with my gums,’ Harry smiled wryly to himself as he overheard his husband quibble.  

 ‘Hush Severus, stop your whining. We have hundreds of squibs, soon we’ll have thousands of squibs, and one day they’ll get tired of living life from the sidelines and want to break away. The muggle community will rise again, just… reversed. Everything will be reversed. We’ll be the majority, and they- well, Nadine will see to the muggle-rights. She’s a good woman, and if anybody can keep that nutcase Zabini in check…’ He smoothed the long mane of silver hair, away, blinking away memories of Hermione, her endless causes, her endless fights. ‘You and I, are re-tired.  With emphasis on  _tired_.‘

‘Mother hen,’ Snape huffed, and walked out of the floo with a muffled ‘Hurry up!’

Harry smiled sadly as he looked at smoking fireplace. Sometimes, Snape’s dark eyes looked so lost, as if he wasn’t really there. It happened more and more; Harry knew he was powerless to stop it; knew his own shadows would also one day reach out and touch him as well.. one day.

One day, but not yet. There was still too much to do. Nadine had given him a poetry book once – one of the salvaged muggle artifacts that he intended to donate to the Muggle Memorial Museum… one day.  

Stupid decision, Snape had said the day Harry’d come home and told him he’d figured out what to name the public park that overlooked their home. And he’d had looked at his friend and mentor and enemy and lover, looked past his dark eyes to the dying heart and the silence taped like gauze around it, to the hidden bottles of brilliant autumn hair; and he’d loved Severus Snape, for all he was and despite all he was, at least as much as one such as him could love another being.

Like would always attract like; he’d vaguely remembered once hearing in some old biological hash. The wounded would somehow squirm around blindly until they found their unnamed sympathy. Little between them had truly changed, though roles and relationships had changed hands like batons; balance of powers see-sawing like the scales in the hands of a blind Justice; a justice one seldom found time to define before it transmuted again. Like two arms of the same person; sometimes doing different things, sometimes coming together.  Like twin gravities, orbiting each other. Harry had found time to search his heart and decide that more than anything else, he could be comforted by this fact.

‘No rest for the wicked,’ Harry murmured to himself as he picked up the elegant invitation cards, straightened his corsage, and walked through the fireplace.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

 

 [FINI]


End file.
